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Phil Fish quits development, cancels Fez II

Polytron's Phil Fish has quit the games industry, cancelling the development of Fez II in the process.

Fish announced his decision through various channels on Sunday. He gave no specific reason for the move.

A statement published on the official Polytron website read: "Fez II is cancelled. I am done. I take the money and I run. This is as much as I can stomach. This is isn't the result of any one thing, but the end of a long, bloody campaign. You win."

While Fish claims that his departure is the culmination of a, "long, bloody campaign," it is believed that a recent Game Trailers video may have been the final straw.

In an episode of the GT web series Invisible Walls, Marcus Beer called out Phil Fish and Jonathan Blow for refusing to offer comment to Game Informer on rumours about Microsoft's decision to allow self-publishing on Xbox One. Beer called both Fish and Blow "hispter assholes" and "tosspots" for their lack of communication with the press, saying, "You should be grateful that these guys still consider what you say to be something of use."

Fish subsequently took to Twitter to provide more context for his decision. "To be clear, I'm not cancelling Fez II because some boorish fuck said something stupid," he said. "I'm doing it to get out of games.

"And I'm getting out of games because I choose not to put up with this abuse any more."

For his part, Jonathan Blow has defended the refusal to give Game Informer comment on the grounds of a lack of concrete facts about Microsoft's self-publishing strategy. At the time, the rumour was "unfounded," and Blow was reluctant to add "information-free commentary."

Blow has also admitted an understanding for Fish's position. "It is really hard to make independent games," he said in a tweet. "It is even harder when your audience makes you hate them.

"I have been tempted to quit game development several times. There are a lot of reasons to quit."

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46 Comments

That is sad, in Hollywood a young director like him who managed to put together a first interesting "movie" would be offered an attractive second go; and not out of generosity, just because Hollywood is so much better at keeping, using, yes, but also in the end developing talents.

I remember once, long ago when I was starting my first videogames job, my then boss told me that "People work in videogames because they couldn't possibly work anywhere else," his meaning being that while everyone he employed was brilliant at their job, they pretty much all had major character flaws that made it impossible for them to work amongst civilised people without getting fired within the first month. (Yes, I've never been sure where that leaves me ;) )

There's not much of that left these days, of course, but there's still a few. ^__^

"In an episode of the GT web series Invisible Walls, Marcus Beer called out Phil Fish and Jonathan Blow for refusing to offer comment to Game Informer on rumours about Microsoft's decision to allow self-publishing on Xbox One. Beer called both Fish and Blow "hispter assholes" and "tosspots" for their lack of communication with the press, saying, "You should be grateful that these guys still consider what you say to be something of use.""

In my opinion they probably should not have rejected the press on that question because it would probably have taken them two minutes to give an opinion going "ooo thats cool" or "meh", but Beer should have not exploded and personally attacked them. It is completely unprofessional and out of order and even though he says he is "pro indie" by some of his comments in that video it seems he is attacking indie games as an extension.

Was anyone else working on the game or was it all him? I'm not sure taking your ball and going home is a mature way to handle anything when you have other people's livelihoods dependent on you. Whilst I'm not defending the behaviour or the press or trolls, I think Fish has been incredibly immature both before and during his Twitter meltdown. He seems to do nothing but complain about other people and seems to lack any kind of self awareness or introspection.

When you're in the public eye you have to take on-line abuse in your stride. It's going to happen no matter how much you ask everyone to play nice. By reacting you're only feeding the trolls and making yourself look bad.

The whole episode was very, very sad; not just for games journalism but for the quality of dialogue between journalists and developers. Fish's initial Twitter response was to tell Beer to go hang himself, though he has since deleted those tweets.

I have to say, as much as I mourn the creative loss, and although I do not for one second believe that this detracts from Fez or that Fish deserved Beer's insults, he should have conducted himself on public stages with more professionalism. Fish has a track record of this: his culturally insensitive and insulting remarks towards that young Japanese developer were particularly galling and indicative of a personality not suited, or not adjusted, to airing his views professionally. Fish made himself a target by acting in such a hostile, insensitive way on public stages, and sadly, someone like Beer was willing to plumb depths in order to attack Fish.

It's a sad day for the industry, but I think it's sadder for the industry that neither Fish or Beer have been able to conduct themselves in a professional, even-handed manner. Obviously not everyone in the industry acts this way, but to see two apparent professionals resort to the kind of mud-slinging that many forum goers would be ashamed of is really disheartening. Best of luck to Phil Fish in his future endeavours, and surely someone should be looking at Beer's position at Gametrailers and wondering if this is the image Gametrailers needs.

he should have conducted himself on public stages with more professionalism.

Linus Torvalds said this about being a professional :

Linus isn't buying it: "Because if you want me to 'act professional', I can tell you that I'm not interested. I'm sitting in my home office wearing a bathrobe. The same way I'm not going to start wearing ties, I'm *also* not going to buy into the fake politeness, the lying, the office politics and backstabbing, the passive aggressiveness, and the buzzwords. Because THAT is what 'acting professionally' results in: people resort to all kinds of really nasty things because they are forced to act out their normal urges in unnatural ways.'

I'm personally quite stunned this has ended in a game cancellation and the departure of a director from the industry he appears to have been passionate about. Not sure what exactly prompted the extreme reaction but it has surprised me. Looks like there are a number of people in this case who could have behaved in far more mature manner...

I don't really think LT is the ideal example here either. You can act professionally without being overly fake or being a bully and a luddite. Just because he only see's fake professionalism (and let's face it, what he's describing here is just general social behaviour and not attributable to "professionalism") doesn't mean that it doesn't exist.

Guy makes great games, i'll be surprised if he really quits. More likely he realised he made a big mistake and finds the emotions of it difficult to handle atm. This is the US remember, they love these "I messed up and I'm sorry/going to rehab" stories.

It's interesting to contrast the comments here with those I saw on Kotaku and Gamespot. The consumer oriented forums are largely filled with posts that vent pre-existing frustrations at Fish or comment on what a 'bitch' Fish was for cancelling the game. More people here are concerned with the sordidness of the whole affair and lack of professionalism on both of their parts. I feel it is Beer who comes off worse in my opinion. Fish is in a publicly visible position out of necessity (he drives the vision of his games) whereas Beer chose to be in the spotlight and is trained to be so.

I can't agree with Beer either crossing the line and making a personal attack on someone, or his attitude which suggests that the press is owed a comment. And truth be told...what developer or publisher out there isn't going to be self-interested and selective with the way their position is represented (admittedly Fish did a bad job at that, but you can't fault him for trying)?

I empathise with Fish and can understand why comments like the kind he gets on a consistent basis could make him want to leave the industry. Heck, just reading the story made me feel like I didn't want a part of it (part of THAT).

Being on the receiving end of the ire of gamers for DmC, I can empathize with Fish. Constant, sustained abuse over years of the most distasteful kind wears you down. To get this kind of abuse from a journalist is beyond belief. I would suggest that few people here could come out of it unscathed.

It's easy to pass judgement on fish when you have not experienced it yourself. Fish, the one thing you have control over is the ability to create works of art. Do it. Focus on it. Get out of the social media circus and spend your energy on what you are truly passionate about, your friends and your loved ones. Everything else is just white noise.

And we wonder why our industry and media are never taken seriously. When this is the attitude and behavior we see coming from some our largest and most respected media outlets, forward progress towards mainstream credibility and acceptance remains a long road to travel.

It was recently asked why we don't have our Roger Ebert. I present to you Exhibit A.

It's a horrendous shame to see two people who are desperately passionate about games development have butted heads to such an extent that it leads to such a sad outcome. I don't think it's a secret that Fish takes everything extremely personally and that Beer makes everything personal on purpose as a means to achieve an end but I wonder if all of this is the result of gaming (consumer) culture.

Both of them walk in and amongst the consumers and are subject to their responses on a regular basis. Beer is often the venting pipe for the consumer to the devs/pubs and often vice-versa; Fish very personally takes on the burden of the consumer's hopes and dreams and tries to make them a reality, a quest that he takes very personally. As a result, they have become the manifestation of two attitudes in modern internet culture that are both unhealthy.

Agree with Tameem though. He needs someone who can be a buffer for him and possibly manage his outbursts/work a bit. Nobody with his talent should be leaving the industry but he does need to confirm that the publicity and inter-personal facets of it are part and parcel as well. If those are not something that he can deal with himself then he needs an ally to help him.

If Phil changes his mind in the future and decides to resume development of Fez II this will still have been a tremendous "awareness boost" for his game. I didn't even know that a sequel was being made until I read about this whole situation. Not the best way to get your game in the mind of consumers though.

This is sad news. I like people that are not afraid to speak their minds and don't follow the crowd. I always looked forward to his comments because they were real not PR crap.
Sorry man. Please reconsider.

This quality was lacking in this whole debacle. I find it somewhat troubling that the people defending Phil Fish are ignoring the age old adage of "You reap what you sow", using "this job is stressful" and "he was under a lot of pressure". Sorry, but these arguments are specious at best. At worst they are flat out excuses.

Every developer has received nastiness from the public, or their peers. How they elect to deal with it as policy says a great deal about the type of person they are. Fish's policy has been to deride and insult people. His past is rife with insults, threats, and generally unhinged rants based on a policy of opening his mouth before thinking about the personal social consequences of what he says. Is he being unfairly attacked by Marcus Beer in an editorial? I think Beer lacked tact in his message, to be sure. But Phil Fish and Jonathon Blow had been lambasting Microsoft's indie publishing policies for weeks, and when asked for an opinion....they exploded with prepubescent rage and bile over being asked for their opinion.

Beer's gist was correct: in this industry where so many talented game developers often blow away un-noticed, you're fortunate to have been a success, and people care about what you think. A simple "No comment" would have sufficed. But instead, Fish opted to have a Kanye West moment, and then cry about the fallout. Sorry, but the people defending Fish by claiming that his actions are the consequence of hateful words directed toward him, are in fact....ignoring that he should be subject to the same criteria...this does nothing but amplify this issue. Fish was a bad actor here. Marcus Beer was a bad actor here. But Marcus Beer does not tell people to kill themselves. Marcus Beer does not threaten someone's life when he's not getting his way. Phil Fish has done these things. There are consequences to actions, and it's dangerous to apply that standard to Marcus Beer, without applying it equally to Phil Fish.

There are consequences to your actions, and memories can be long. This is the human condition and it has lead to "you reap what you sow".

Fish seems incapable of ever taking any high ground. He seems incapable of thinking before he opens his mouth. There are consequences for acting this way. To excuse it with "oh, he's just a tortured artist" or "he takes this crap every day, and it can tear a person down"....is an insult to everyone who gets the same abuse and manages it with some level of maturity. It's not that he has to "shut up, sit down and take it", far from it. Nobody should have to sit and take being abused. But, there are ways (plural) of dealing with such things, and being an aggressive foul mouthed, insulting, and toxic jerk is not working well for him. His record comes back to haunt him, and mitigate the circumstances in this situation.

Yes, he created Fez. Yes, it's a solid entry in the indie game genre. But, people are acting like he's the face of indie gaming, and he himself has elevated himself to exactly what Beer said: a self styled king of indie, who think's he's needed. One thing we all learn in the world is that everyone is replaceable. Results matter. Fez was one result. It mattered. But if Phil is going to make his primary product rage, infantile outbursts, and insults to anyone who does not share his wavelength at a given moment...then, there are thousands of other people eager for a chance to make it in this industry and the law of averages says one or more of them will be equal to, or surpass Phil Fish. Instead of lamenting a guy who is largely the source of his own problems...perhaps that effort would be better spent trying to find and discover more indie devs who produce awesome games, and know how to ignore idiots. If we do that, everyone wins.

In closing: I think Phil needs professional help. It's pretty clear he has issues relating to people. He lacks the ability to give a measured response to things. I can understand someone losing it, but blowing your temper and spewing bile every time....is abnormal no matter how you try to spin it. Fish should get himself some help, get some tools to cope with an unchanging world. If he does that, he could create a legacy of games that would rival even Sid Meier.....

That's no idle thought either, it's clear Fish has a passion for what he does. But unchecked rage will not get him anywhere in life, no matter what he works on or how hard.

I watched a docu last night Indie Game: The Movie which Fish was one of four featured developers. While Fish seems to have gone through a lot of life events through the development of Fez, he came across incredibly unstable in the first place. Aside from the fact that they were pretty much given money by the Canadian government in a grant to create the game - grants to make a game? Isn't that every one's dream? He seemed to lack the sensibility of development process and could not balance his obsessive nature with perfectionism with meeting deadlines.

My biggest issue with indie developers is they come across as hipsters of the gaming industry... I could generalize that you typically find a few varieties: The newbie just trying to get something under his belt to bring to a larger studio (nothing wrong with that), the creative who just wants to make games that they want to make (again, nothing wrong with that), the jaded ex mainstream dev (typically has a large ego and chip on his shoulder). And it's a shame - because each of these types can make some kickass content and games that people will love and potentially hate...

But it's like any environment when you're in a creative process - you got to be able to roll with punches and know when to just turn on the blinders to some of the negativity - or better yet, use that to become better.

Gamers as a people are no different than any other audience when it comes to a creative medium. If Fish can't accept that, I'm surprised he made it as far as he did in the first place.

The biggest issue with Fish - and I tend to agree with Christopher McCraken, his attitude towards his role in development of Fez and any other games was one of providing a gift to all of us (us being the world) and we should be so honored by that. But the reality is, no matter how genius or amazing your contributions are to a creative work or art, the behavior can overshadow the innovation and hard work.

If this is real and not some marketing ploy, then I feel bad for Phil Fish and the parties involved as it never needed to get to be this bad and get so personal. If real its also a sad statement about journalism in this industry.

The reason I keep questioning whether this is real or not is simply based on the fact the Phil Fish uses a Andy Kaufman picture for his icon on twitter. Perhaps this is just a coincidence, or perhaps its a clue. As this type of punking of the public is right up Kaufmans alley. If indeed it is PR act, than once again, its sad state of affairs that such acts are now needed to bring attention to ones products.

As I dont know any of these parties personally, I will tend to believe this was indeed a true dust up that got too personal and that perhaps some people have had enough. and if that is the case, and someone has had their passion taken from them, then thats ashame.

With an attitude like that I wonder why he can't get a comment from a developer. Good luck getting any comments from future developers.

He didn't ask them for a quote. He was making a statement in regard to their (Fish and Blow) unhinged response to a request for a quote from two other journalists/web mags. The premise was very simple actually, Blow and Fish had been ranting to anyone who would listen about how badly aligned Microsoft was in regard to indies, so when asked about the news coming out of a reversal of policy, rather than just say something like "The rumor if true would be good, but we're focused on what Sony was doing" they elected to go off on a tirade. Beer then, having heard about this, made his own tactless comments.

These details have been lost in the endless discussion about this. They are relevant and definitely add depth needed to make a proper analysis of this explosion.

Beer's comments are embarrassing and unprofessional. He makes games journalists everywhere look like privileged, rumor-driven snobs, when in reality, there's a number of legitimate publications who work hard to maintain a solid flow of newsworthy articles and interesting interviews. Someone refusing a statement is part of the job just as much as someone giving you one is. Deal with it.

Maybe this was all for the best. Maybe a timeout is exactly what FIsh needs. I mean, he's been pretty blunt in his comments about other games, so releasing a game that sucks isn't really an option for him at this point. Ambition is one thing, but his statements only serve to put even more pressure on his own work.

All that being said, I can certainly relate to the frustration of being put through the meat grinder by people who don't really understand what your job is really about. Being a critic is ultimately the easier position (important as it may sometimes be).

"And I'm getting out of games because I choose not to put up with this abuse any more."

That's an honest and logical step. Also, I far as I know, you have to pay for patching on XBLA and FEZ is Microsoft exclusive. So, there probably was some arguing about that. It's his decision to make, but I believe you can only change a system from within.

Let's be blunt: calling Marcus Beer a "journalist" is like calling Hip Hop Gamer a journalist. Yes, they have their audience, but calling what they do "journalists" is highly stretching the term. They make their living, more or less, by being professional assholes.

Let's also contrast this, unfortunately, to the fact that Phil has never gotten along with anyone in the first place. Frankly, I haven't asked him for any comments because I don't want to be subjected to a twitter war. It's sad it's come to this, and it's sad that Mr. Beer has the temerity to criticize the press for some of their own actions - let's not forget, this was first caused by people going to Blow and Fish looking for comments, not information, but things to put in their subject lines to draw hits - but I can't say I'm saddened at something so predictable.

Edited 1 times. Last edit by Christopher Bowen on 29th July 2013 8:25pm

@Christian - I would love to see Anderson Cooper whine about how unprofessional some of his rejections have been. This is a part of the business.

And let's face it: those two have been burned so many times by people wanting to ignore the story in favour of "BREAKING: JONATHAN BLOW SAID A THING" that I can't quite blame them for telling people to screw off.

The unfortunate consequences of following the reasoning of 'you reap what you sow' is that 'he started it' can be seen as an acceptable excuse for counter-conflict. I am not sure I agree with that. Fish was in the wrong but Beer (nor anyone else) is in a position to use that as a way to legitimise launching a counter-strike (it defeats the very integrity of the person who is denouncing these kinds of behaviour if they indulge in it themselves, in fact the respondee should be in a position to reflect on their position more clearly and be held to higher standards).

Though I think I get that your point is more along the lines of 'there are consequences to actions and people have to bear that brunt'. I just want to caution that no one should be in a rush to artificially provide those consequences; the credibility of the two individuals involved and the way people view this event is enough of a consequence.

I don't think the way Fish and Blow responded to the request for comments about a rumor was all that bad; yes they could have been more polite but they were being bombarded with requests to comment on a rumor, which is pretty poor journalism; I doubt this was an isolated incident either. When journalists don't get their inflammatory click-bait reply from Blow and Fish and instead gets called out for poor journalism, Beer gets butthurt and starts insulting them, proving their Twitter posts to be accurate. I don't recall either of them specifically calling out Beer (before his childish tirade), and he seems to forget that games journalists rely on developers as much as developers rely on journalists.

For those who are curious, these are Fish and Blow's responses to the requests to comment on the rumors (these are from Twitter, so read them from bottom to top):

Oh, I never said Beer was in the right. He lacked any sort of tact. However, Fish has a history, and it should not be discounted. When your default response to anything is unbridled hostility, well then...you should be in a position to get as good as you give.

Most of us learn this on the playground in primary school. It's not a pretty lesson, but it is a valid one.

To be honest, I think Fish is the wrong model to use as a basis of comparison when it comes to talking about the abusive tripe developers get, which is very real and something that needs to be addressed.

And Dave Wolf: the context of those tweets really are lacking in one respect, yes...they were rumors. But as anyone who has read a newspaper knows...there are "a friend told me that his friend who works here and overheard this" kind of rumors, and a rumor with some traction. Even the most unskilled newspaper hack can usually tell the difference. The fact that these "rumors" were verified should be considered, but even more so....I can think of a number of ways to respond to that, without resorting to belittling the people who consider you an authority on the topic (having shouted to anyone willing to listen about the same topic for the last month or so). As I said: when your default response to anything is to open fire with both barrels, well...you shouldn't be surprised by return fire.

Neither party in this nasty situation is blameless. That said, turning one party into a martyr solves nothing, especially when that party has not exactly been the kindest person toward others.

Edited 1 times. Last edit by Christopher McCraken on 30th July 2013 12:21am

@Christopher
Beer should have also taken Fish's past into account before getting so personally offended by comments that weren't even directed at him personally. I don't deny that Fish and Blow could have both replied more politely, but they also probably get really fed up with some journalists constantly trying to get them to say something inflammatory so it'll drive traffic to their site.

And it wasn't "verified", or else it wouldn't be a rumor. One gaming site posted the rumor and then a bunch of others jumped all over Fish and Blow trying to get some kind of response. It would have been better if they replied "I don't comment on rumors" but I think part of the reason journalists want their opinion is because they're hoping to get some easy click bait (and then readers make all kinds of rude comments), and I certainly don't fault either of them for getting tired of it.

People like Beer are the National Enquirer / Fox of games journalism and sadly, this speaks to a lot of people that are not representative of this forum. There's no avoiding people like him. Unfortunately, Fish has consistently fed the trolls so they stuck around.

Edited 1 times. Last edit by Patrick Williams on 30th July 2013 12:04pm

Fez was a nice little game and would very much like to see more of it as with the sequel. I understand Fish's anger regarding patching up the game and how microsoft made that a task for him. However i just think he is now being a big crybaby with anger managment issues. I think if your truly passionate about what you do, you would let very little stop you... seriously, being abused? Sometimes when life is a bitch you be a bitch back. I would love Fish to continue making games. But he spends more time with angry rants, then actually making them.